Glossary

Ad Banner - A graphic image on a web page that links to a location of the advertiser's choice. Ad banners are currently the most popular type of online advertisement. 

Ad Product - A specific advertising opportunity on a web site. Examples of ad products are banners, transition ads, column ads, tickers and more. 

Accipiter - One of the most advanced and popular ad management software systems used on the Web. 

Ad Requests-(Ad Impressions) - A request to the server to return an ad to the appropriate Web page. The Internet Advertisers Bureau (IAB) issued proposed standards using ad requests as the unit of measure for counting Web ads. 

Ads Served -A returned Ad, by the server, to a user each time requests a content page with an ad on it. 

Animated GIF - An animation created by combining multiple GIF images in one file. The result is multiple images, displayed one after another, that give the appearance of movement. Research indicates that animated banners are more effective than static banners, generating higher ad awareness and recall, and click-through. 

Auditor - A third-party company that tracks, counts and verifies ad-banner requests or verifies a Web site's ad reporting system. 

Bandwidth - The amount of information that can be transmitted over communications lines at one time. The higher the bandwidth, the faster the Web page loads. Limited bandwidth is the main reason for keeping graphics on Web pages to as minimum file size as possible. 

Beyond-the-Banner - A term referring to any advertising product that is not a banner ie: interstitial, streaming video ads, etc. 

Browser - A program that enables you to navigate the World Wide Web. Browsers can be either text-based or graphical. Some examples of browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

Cache - A file on the client computer, or corporate/Internet Service Provider (ISP) server, that stores (caches) web pages for display in the browser. This speeds page viewing because pages are downloaded to the client computer from a local computer vs. having to download from the Web. Often used by corporations and ISP's where many people use a common gateway to view the same Web pages.

Channels - Links based on a specific category (usually on a portal page) that link to related content.

Chat - Online interactive communication on the Web. You can "talk" in real time with other people in the "chat room", but the words are typed instead of spoken.

Clickstream - The electronic path a user takes while navigating from site to site, and within a site, from page to page.

Clickthrough - The act of clicking a banner, or other ad, which links the user (typically) to the advertiser's Web site.

Clickthrough Rate - Percentage of clickthroughs to total impressions.

Cookie - A file on a computer that records information such as where the user has been on the Web. Some web sites use cookies to identify visitors to that site, enabling more personalized information to be served upon return to the site. Users can prevent web sites from assigning cookies by adjusting options with the client's browser.

Copy - Printed text in an advertisement.

Creative - The concept, design, and artwork in an advertisement.

CPM - Cost Per Thousand (Roman Numeral) impressions. The price paid by an advertiser for a content site displaying their banner a thousand times.

Demographics - Common characteristics used for population segmentation. Typical demographic data points include age, gender, postal code, and income.

Dynamic Rotation - Delivery of ads on a rotating, random basis so that consumers get to see different messages. Also gives the ads a chance to appear on different places within the site.

eCommerce - The process of selling products or services via the Web.

Frequency - The number of times a person is exposed to an ad.

GIF - Graphic Interchange Format. The most common file compression format for banner ads and most other pictures on the Web.

Hits - A server side event triggered by a user's actions on a Web page. Hits can be used to measure traffic activity on a Web site. This is not the most reliable gauge to compare different sites, as one page with five graphic elements will register six hits when viewed, while a page with no graphics will only register one hit.

Hyperlink - Text or graphics that have linking properties. When a user clicks on hyperlinked text or graphics, the user is transported to another location of content either on the same page or another page.

Impressions (ad requests) - An impression is the industry term for delivering an ad a Web page. Technically, an impression is a call from the ad engine to the ad server to return an advertisement graphic.

Internet Service Provider - An organization that provides access to the Internet, usually for a monthly fee. An Internet Service Provider (ISP) can be a commercial provider, a corporate computer network, a school, college, university, or the government.

Interstitial Ads (AKA Intermercial and transition ads) - Interstitial ads are ads that appear between two content pages. If a user is on content page A and clicks on a hyperlink to go to content page B, the Interstitial page will appear after the user clicks on page A, before the user is moved to content page B.

Inventory - The amount of available space for banners on a Web site that can be delivered in a given time period.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) - A graphics file format (similar to GIF) which is used more for photographs and other images containing many colors and shading.

Make Good - If the tracking process reveals any shortfall of delivery (i.e. ad requests planned versus delivered), adjustments are made by the publisher to the advertiser or agency, to ensure proper delivery.

Latency - In networking, latency and bandwidth are the two factors that determine the speed of your connection. Latency is the time it takes for a data packet to move across a network connection.

Link (same as a hyperlink) - Marked text (usually underlined), or a picture, within an HTML document (web page). When clicked on, a hyperlink brings you to another web page, or to another place on the same page.

On-line service - A company that provides customer only content to subscribers of their service. Most On-line services now offer Internet access, but their main feature is the privately maintained network that is only accessible to their customers. This network is not part of the Internet, although some On-line services are currently making some content available on the Web. Examples: AOL, MSN, Compuserve, Prodigy

Page Views - The number of times users request a page that may contain a specific ad.

Packages - A grouping, or collection, of ad products combined to create a cost -effective approach to reach your target audience.

Portal - The starting point for a users Web experience, providing information and services often times including news, email, entertainment, shopping, sports and more. The portal refers to the virtual "door" that a user walks through every time they access the Internet, this is the first screen that a user sees when going online.

Psychographics - Common psychological characteristics that allow for population segmentation. Typical psychographic data points include opinions, attitudes, and beliefs about various aspects relating to lifestyle and purchasing behavior.

Rate Card - The list containing pricing, and in some cases descriptions, of all currently available ad products and packages.

Reach - The total number of people who will see a given ad.

Rich-Media - Media technology that has been either developed or enhanced to deliver interaction, multimedia, expanded creative space, transaction behavior, and interaction to the users through the Web.

ROS/RON (Run of Site/Run of Network) - Provides the advertiser the opportunity to reach a broad audience by running ads throughout the network as allocated by MSN.COM. Run of Site provides greater targeting by reaching members interested in a specific service, however without specific targeting criteria.

Search Engine - A program which acts like a library card catalog for the Internet. Search engines attempt to help a user isolate desired information or resources by searching for keywords that the user specifies. The method for finding this information is usually done by maintaining an index of Web resources that can be queried for the keywords or concepts entered by the user. The index can be built from specific resource lists or created by Web wanderers, robots, spiders, crawlers, and worms. Examples: Yahoo, Lycos, Infoseek, Excite 

Sponsorships - Sponsorship is the process of integrating an Advertisers messages with Web content on an exclusive basis. Examples of this are transitions Ads with "brought to you by" messages, consistent co-branding of a section of content with the Advertiser's icon "sponsored by …".

Static Rotation - Advertisements that do not rotate and remain on a Web page for a specified period of time.

Streaming Audio/Video - Audio or video that plays as the file loads. Streaming files allow for users to avoid the long wait of waiting for the files to completely load before previewing.

Targeting - The process of delivering the best possible ad to the user through content matching, profiling, or filtering.

Traffic - The number and types of people who come to a Web site. Measured in many different ways.

Unique Users - Users marked by either a GUID (Global User ID) or a cookie in the form of an ID that is attached to a user's browser. Unique users do not include repeat users during a specified session.

URL - Uniform Resource Locator. The unique, identifying address of any particular page on the web